"Ever so far away," answered the little fellow. "Wiesbaden is the name
of the town. It is a very beautiful town, mamma says. And mamma has
given me a lot of lovely new toys, and I am taking them all with me."
"And don't you feel frightened?" asked Leo.
"Mamma says, schoolboys are never frightened," answered Paul. "Boys
must be brave. But poor mamma is dreadfully frightened herself. She
cries and cries! Look here, won't you go to mamma, and tell her there
is nothing to be frightened about?"
"I suppose you will be going at Michaelmas?" asked Leo, flabbergasted.
Paulchen laughed contemptuously. "No, indeed!" he said. "We are
starting now. Papa and I, by this very train. Papa is gone to look
after the big luggage, and I am waiting here for him."
Leo sprang up. Then she must be at the station too! Any minute she
might come in at that door. The hideousness of the situation, which, in
listening to the boy's pretty talk, he had almost forgotten, broke on
him afresh.
He clutched at his cap. Like a thief, he must slink away by the side
door.
"Are you going so soon, Uncle Leo?" the child asked anxiously.
"I must, Paulchen."
"And aren't you going to say good-bye to me?"
An irresistible impulse seized him. He caught up the boy in his arms
with warmth, murmuring inarticulate words over him. He felt the
childish lips pressing against his cheeks caressingly.
He trembled; and then the door opened, and not she whom he expected,
but Ulrich came in. He let go of the boy, and seemed to himself as if
he were a criminal discovered in an act of desecration. Yet when he saw
Ulrich's look of dismay and reproach, he went to him quickly, and,
taking his hand, said in a low voice--
"Don't be angry, and don't reproach me. It was pure chance. I did not
even recognise him when I first came in and found him sitting here. I
could not run away when he came and spoke to me. I have bid him
good-bye, and in secret asked him to forgive me. There is nothing wrong
in that?"
"No, nothing wrong," agreed Ulrich; "that is true."
Leo now noticed that he looked even a shade more wretched and worn than
on that evening when he had paid him his farewell visit. His breath was
short, his eyes burned in their blue hollows.
"You are not well, my dear old fellow?" Leo inquired. Had he not known
by experience the tenacity of Ulrich's constitution, he would have had
the gravest fears.
"I have been much worried." Then, looking at his step-son, he added
questioningly, "You know?"
Leo nodded.
Ulrich stroked the small smooth head of the boy, whose closely cropped
brown hair grew in two half-circles low on his thoughtful forehead.
"Have you said good-bye to Wilhelm?" he asked.
No; he had forgotten to do that.
Ulrich looked at the clock. There were still ten minutes before the
train was due. "Run along, then," he said, "and when it's time I will
fetch you."
The boy ran out, slightly dragging one leg, a habit of delicate
children.
Ulrich looked after him with a smile full of sad, anxious tenderness.
"It will be hard for me to part with him," he said; "he was about all I
had."
"Must it be?" asked Leo, to whom the suddenly made plan, of which there
had been no hint a month ago, seemed not a little extraordinary.
Ulrich nodded, wrinkling his forehead. "Yes, it must," he said. "I
should never have consented to it, of course, perhaps simply from
selfish reasons, if I had had the right to decide over the child's
future. But he is _hers_, and she wishes it."
"She is not here?" asked Leo, again betraying uneasiness.
"No," Ulrich answered; "with great difficulty, I persuaded her to stay
at home. Just before we started she had an hysterical fit, and if she
had had another on the platform it would have made a scene."
"But if she feels it so much, why does she send him away?"
A shadow of pained self-dissatisfaction, which Leo knew from childhood,
passed over Ulrich's face. "I believe it is my fault," said he.
"Of course, everything is your fault," replied Leo. "If a stone falls
on some one's head in Borneo, it is your fault."
Ulrich smiled.
"Look at the boy," he said, "and then at me, and you must see that if
he were my own flesh and blood he could not be more like me. Sickly he
has been from birth--sensitive, anaemic, just as I have been. And since
he has become attached to me, he moulds himself more and more after my
pattern. And nothing could be worse for him. Who knows what I should
have grown to be without your pluck and muscularity to rely upon? He
has had no such comrade as I had in you. Instead, he has only had me to
pamper and pet him. Under my guidance he must grow up a weakling and a
milksop, and no man. In order that he should have a stronger hand over
him, I advised Felicitas to engage your pastor's son as his tutor. And
when that young gentleman began to demoralise my household, I winked at
it for the boy's sake. Finally, Felicitas herself got sick of him, and
sent him packing. For two or three weeks after that she taught the
little chap herself, but Felicitas is not the person to stick long to
that sort of thing. And she was certainly right when she decided on a
new move. I dare not take on my shoulders the responsibility of being
the ruin of her son."
It all sounded rational enough, yet in spite of that it was monstrous.
"But if you must sacrifice him," exclaimed Leo, "why send him to the
other end of the country? He might be ill and die before you got to
him."
"Hold me answerable for as much as you like," answered Ulrich, and his
eyes glistened with anxiety; "but just in this matter you must leave me
out. The child is not my child, and I am bound to acquiesce. All I can
do is to see that the thing is properly done. Felicitas chose the
school. The energy with which she set about it astonished me. She
declares that such a thorough change of air may prove most blessedly
beneficial to the boy, both mentally and physically, provided that the
influence of his earlier surroundings are entirely eradicated. I should
be quite ready to agree with her in theory, if the application of that
theory did not tear my heartstrings. But why do I talk of myself? She
is the mother by blood of the child. She must suffer more than I. Ah,
and what will she not yet have to suffer."
Leo was silent. Suspicion, dim at first, that his coming home had
something to do with what had happened, grew clearer and stronger in
his mind. Was it fear that, now he was in the neighbourhood, some
rumour of the horrible deed might poison the heart of the child, which
had prompted the mother to send him away? The poor little creature's
peace of mind and innocence might be blasted for ever by the tactless
gossip of a servant or an overheard tag of conversation. For this she
was parting with him, sending him into banishment, that the well of his
pure childhood's days should remain undefiled. He had never suspected
her of such powers of renunciation. It seemed almost too great a
sacrifice to be wrung from a mother's heart. However frivolous she
might be, this atoned for much.
The wonder was that Ulrich saw or suspected nothing of all this.
Despite his being the practical philosopher _par excellence_, be always
seemed to be more and more hopelessly out of touch with the practical
side of life. But to open his eyes would have been cruel--cruel to
himself more than to any one else. Why impose a fresh burden on their
friendship, already bowed to the earth?
The bell announcing the incoming train sounded outside. Ulrich sprang
up.
"Go out that way," he said, pointing to the door that led into the
waiting-room, "so that you don't see him again."
"Yes, you are right. I promise that it shall be the last time," replied
Leo. He squeezed his friend's hand and went, and behind him he heard a
voice calling, "Uncle Leo."